For years I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what we collectively meant by 'curriculum'. It seemed to me that the most important curriculum decisions revolved around who taught Ancient Greece, who got Vikings and which poor teacher had to dress in a toga for the The Romans topic. The key characteristic of an outstanding broad and balanced curriculum was the number of themed days and special weeks a school ran. In recent years I have come to realise that my understanding of curriculum was somewhat lacking. And that is somewhat of an understatement.
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In 2014 a new curriculum arrived in primary schools with little fanfare and at a time when we were being left to sort things out for themselves. As such, there was little or no training accessible for school leaders and teachers. At my school we viewed this new curriculum through the lens of the old curriculum and treated it as a 'like for like' replacement. We didn't notice that there had been a shift in emphasis away from skills with a greater emphasis on knowledge at its core. There was a list of science and humanities topics to be studied and the most important decisions were about allocating these to different year groups. At the same time, primary schools had a lot to concern themselves with including the new daunting SAT tests and, most confusingly, the Pandora's box of assessment without levels - a terrifying prospect for many school leaders who had only ever known a world of 2as and 4bs. All of this ultimately distracted us from grasping the core messages of the curriculum which were spelled out in the introductory paragraphs of the National Curriculum. In the rush to find out if we were still going to teach the Victorians we skipped over paragraphs like this...
The national curriculum provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said; and helps engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.
When HMCI Amanda Spielman stated that Ofsted were having an increased focus on curriculum my primary concerns as curriculum leader were whether we had allocated enough time to each subject in our timetable and whether there was enough art in the sketchbooks. I now realise how shallow my thinking around curriculum had been. The commentary from Amanda Spielman hit a nerve -
"...despite the fact that the curriculum is what is taught, there is little debate or reflection about it."
When we started to look at our curriculum again in 2017 something quickly became apparent - we didn't actually know what was being taught. Yes, we knew that Y3 did The Stone Age and Y4 did The Egyptians but beyond that things got a bit vague. Back in 2014 we had taken statements such as -
'Pupils should be taught about: a significant turning point in British history, for example, the Battle of Britain'
and built units of work around them. An online resource had promised to help us plan the new curriculum using a progression of generic skills divided into end of year expectations for Year 2, 4 and 6. Here is an example of what we hoped children would be able to do in Year 6 whilst studying The Battle of Britain and World War 2 -
The problem here was that this didn't really tell anyone the detail of what they were supposed to actually teach and, more importantly, what exactly children were supposed to learn. Which, on reflection, was a bit of an oversight to say the least.
Teachers were given these generic skills and left to plan their units of work accordingly. Of course, this meant teachers were making critical decisions about the content of the curriculum without subject leaders having much of an overview. For a topic on The Battle of Britain it was feasible that our Year Six teachers might choose to teach any of the following content to meet the skills-based objectives above -
As teachers moved year group, or as enthusiasm waned, the curriculum mutated from one year to the next with few checks on the new content being studied. With each teacher individually selecting the elements of the topic from a possible 20 or so contexts there were a dizzying number of permutations possible. Consider now that this was the case for every foundation subject in each half term taught over the year in all year groups. The amount of variation was staggering! How on earth were we going to ensure that abstract concepts such as 'peasantry' and 'parliament' were going to be well understood as pupils progressed through our barely defined History curriculum!
There were multiple problems with what we were doing -
1. Subject leaders knew the broad strokes of the curriculum but nobody knew the finer details
How did we ensure that children built up 'an extended specialist vocabulary' in science? Well, we didn't really. Teachers were free to choose the vocabulary being used and whether this was learned for the long term depended entirely on the teacher's individual emphasis and preferences.
2. There were few opportunities to develop coherent threads throughout the curriculum
Without clear planning of the detail of the curriculum it was impossible to ensure that pupils had repeated exposure to abstract concepts in different contexts to ensure long term remembering.
3. It was difficult to manage resources when individual teachers were making decisions about the exact content of each unit
For example, with teachers using vague objectives in Design Technology such as "Choose suitable techniques to construct products" the embattled DT leader had little idea of the resources they needed to buy from one year to the next.
4. It was difficult to determine if children were making good progress within the curriculum
If the content of the curriculum was not clearly defined it was very difficult to say if children were making good progress in geography or history for example. The idea that the curriculum is the progression model is a simple and powerful idea which is expertly explained in this blog by Michael Fordham.
As Michael states -
- Use sources of evidence to deduce information about the past.
- Select suitable sources of evidence, giving reasons for choices.
- Describe the social, cultural, or religious diversity of past society.
- Describe the characteristics of the past
- Use dates and term accurately in describing the events.
The problem here was that this didn't really tell anyone the detail of what they were supposed to actually teach and, more importantly, what exactly children were supposed to learn. Which, on reflection, was a bit of an oversight to say the least.
- Which sources of evidence did we actually want pupils to use?
- What were the specific deductions we wanted children to draw from these sources?
- Which particular aspects of social, cultural and religious diversity would be learned?
- Which defined characteristics of the past did we want children to grasp?
- Precisely which dates and terms did we want pupils to use accurately?
Teachers were given these generic skills and left to plan their units of work accordingly. Of course, this meant teachers were making critical decisions about the content of the curriculum without subject leaders having much of an overview. For a topic on The Battle of Britain it was feasible that our Year Six teachers might choose to teach any of the following content to meet the skills-based objectives above -
- Rationing
- The Blitz
- The Battle of Britain
- Women's roles
- D-Day
- Propaganda
- Songs from WWII
- Famous Speeches
- Concentration Camps
- ARP precautions
- Evacuation
- Normandy beach landings
- Timeline of events
- Key Figures - Hitler
- Key Figures - Churchill
- Key Figures - Anne Frank
- Axis and Allies
- Life on the frontline
- Causes of World War 2
- Impact of World War 2
As teachers moved year group, or as enthusiasm waned, the curriculum mutated from one year to the next with few checks on the new content being studied. With each teacher individually selecting the elements of the topic from a possible 20 or so contexts there were a dizzying number of permutations possible. Consider now that this was the case for every foundation subject in each half term taught over the year in all year groups. The amount of variation was staggering! How on earth were we going to ensure that abstract concepts such as 'peasantry' and 'parliament' were going to be well understood as pupils progressed through our barely defined History curriculum!
There were multiple problems with what we were doing -
1. Subject leaders knew the broad strokes of the curriculum but nobody knew the finer details
How did we ensure that children built up 'an extended specialist vocabulary' in science? Well, we didn't really. Teachers were free to choose the vocabulary being used and whether this was learned for the long term depended entirely on the teacher's individual emphasis and preferences.
2. There were few opportunities to develop coherent threads throughout the curriculum
Without clear planning of the detail of the curriculum it was impossible to ensure that pupils had repeated exposure to abstract concepts in different contexts to ensure long term remembering.
3. It was difficult to manage resources when individual teachers were making decisions about the exact content of each unit
For example, with teachers using vague objectives in Design Technology such as "Choose suitable techniques to construct products" the embattled DT leader had little idea of the resources they needed to buy from one year to the next.
4. It was difficult to determine if children were making good progress within the curriculum
If the content of the curriculum was not clearly defined it was very difficult to say if children were making good progress in geography or history for example. The idea that the curriculum is the progression model is a simple and powerful idea which is expertly explained in this blog by Michael Fordham.
As Michael states -
"If a student has learnt the curriculum, they have made progress."
The caveat being that if the curriculum is not well planned then any claims about children's progress are likely to be built on sand.
5. The curriculum changed from year to year and was increasingly difficult to keep track of.
Subtle changes in content from year to year dependent upon the interests and enthusiasms of individual teachers meant that we had a nebulous curriculum that was difficult to pin down.
It was clear that we needed to spell out in meticulous detail the knowledge that we wanted teachers to teach and pupils to learn in each subject. So, that is what we have now started to do. It's a very simple idea at heart. We are writing down the knowledge and vocabulary we think children should know in each subject in the curriculum. Crucially, this is being completed by subject leaders responsible for planning the full sequence of learning in their own subjects. This work is then being drawn together and overseen by myself as curriculum leader.
This approach will help us to determine what Clare Sealy describes brilliantly in this blog as vertical and diagonal links within the curriculum.
A source of evidence in history
A source for a newspaper story in English
A source of light in science
Each time the concept of a 'source' is revisited then the understanding becomes richer and more nuanced.
This detailed planning will help us to prepare the half termly knowledge organisers which we use to help secure long term remembering through self-quizzing, homework and low stakes testing (for more information on the use of knowledge organisers I recommend starting with this blog from Joe Kirby)
Here is an example of the geography knowledge that we want pupils to know by the end of the rainforest topic in Year 5.
5. The curriculum changed from year to year and was increasingly difficult to keep track of.
Subtle changes in content from year to year dependent upon the interests and enthusiasms of individual teachers meant that we had a nebulous curriculum that was difficult to pin down.
It was clear that we needed to spell out in meticulous detail the knowledge that we wanted teachers to teach and pupils to learn in each subject. So, that is what we have now started to do. It's a very simple idea at heart. We are writing down the knowledge and vocabulary we think children should know in each subject in the curriculum. Crucially, this is being completed by subject leaders responsible for planning the full sequence of learning in their own subjects. This work is then being drawn together and overseen by myself as curriculum leader.
This approach will help us to determine what Clare Sealy describes brilliantly in this blog as vertical and diagonal links within the curriculum.
- Vertical links being those links within a particular subject from year to year (e.g. the concept of Empire in history taught through multiple topics).
- Diagonal links being those elusive links between different subjects in different year groups. This is best illustrated with Clare's example of the concept of a source being taught across the whole curriculum e.g.
A source of evidence in history
A source for a newspaper story in English
A source of light in science
Each time the concept of a 'source' is revisited then the understanding becomes richer and more nuanced.
This detailed planning will help us to prepare the half termly knowledge organisers which we use to help secure long term remembering through self-quizzing, homework and low stakes testing (for more information on the use of knowledge organisers I recommend starting with this blog from Joe Kirby)
Here is an example of the geography knowledge that we want pupils to know by the end of the rainforest topic in Year 5.
And here is an example of the science knowledge for the same Y5 topic
This represents a shift for us towards an increasingly knowledge-rich curriculum and I don't intend to argue the merits of this approach as others have done this more eloquently than I could (a good starting point would be either of the following two books - E.D. Hirsch's Why Knowledge Matters or Daisy Christodoulou's Seven Myths of Education). Aside from the impact we are confident this will have on children's learning, the process of spelling out a curriculum is certainly an interesting piece of professional development for subject leaders. As the curriculum redesign progresses we are confident that subject leaders will know their curriculum inside and out and have a greater understanding of standards in their subject.
We are at an early stage in this process but can already see several benefits to this approach -
We are at an early stage in this process but can already see several benefits to this approach -
- We will know exactly what is taught across school in every subject in every year group. There will be clarity in definitions and terminology to reduce variation from year group to year group.
- We will have a much clearer sense of the progression in each subject from Reception to Year 6
- We will know exactly which resources are needed throughout the year so can ensure these are purchased well in advance
- We can ensure that threads are woven carefully through the curriculum e.g. the concepts of 'parliament' and 'civilisation' will exist in multiple History units in different year groups to ensure they are remembered for the long term.
- We can ensure greater consistency in the curriculum across school from one year to the next
- We can be more confident that our children make good progress in foundation subjects developing robust knowledge and vocabulary. This, in turn, should ensure children develop better reading comprehension. As Daniel Willingham argues in this blog 'School Time, Knowledge and Reading Comprehension'...
'Teaching content IS teaching reading'
Or to put it another way...
'Once kids can decode fluently, reading comprehension depends heavily on knowledge. By failing to provide a solid grounding in basic subjects we inadvertently hobble children's ability in reading comprehension.'
We are just beginning this work but are excited by the potential of this project. I hope to blog about some more of the details of this approach in the near future.
For further reading on curriculum development these blogs are invaluable -
Michael Fordham - https://clioetcetera.com/category/knowledge-and-curriculum/
Jon Brunskill - https://pedfed.wordpress.com/
Christine Counsel - https://thedignityofthethingblog.wordpress.com/
Clare Sealy - https://primarytimery.com/
Adam Boxer - https://impact.chartered.college/article/boxer-ks3-science-wasted-years-no-more/
Finally, I wanted to say thank you to Adam Boxer, Mark Enser and Ben Newmark who have kindly offered their time to give us feedback on our Science, Geography and History units of work and their input has been tremendously helpful.
Michael Fordham - https://clioetcetera.com/category/knowledge-and-curriculum/
Jon Brunskill - https://pedfed.wordpress.com/
Christine Counsel - https://thedignityofthethingblog.wordpress.com/
Clare Sealy - https://primarytimery.com/
Adam Boxer - https://impact.chartered.college/article/boxer-ks3-science-wasted-years-no-more/
Finally, I wanted to say thank you to Adam Boxer, Mark Enser and Ben Newmark who have kindly offered their time to give us feedback on our Science, Geography and History units of work and their input has been tremendously helpful.